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 Daedalus81 wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
But GW doesn't seem to think this is a problem. If you look at AOS, GW's other big game and its newer one, alpha strikes are *wildly* more powerful than in 40k, and the "balance" is that the player who gets alphaed then has a 55% chance to get two turns in a row. This means most games are over by T3, and many games are over by the middle of T2.

Is there a source for this claim? I don't play AoS so I have nothing to go by.

Uh...the core rules for the game?

Yea, but like data?

At the end of each Battleround, there is a roll-off for who has the choice of going first or second in the next battle round. If you went first in the previous round, you win if the dice roll is tied. This can often, about under 50% of the time, result in the player who went second in the battleround being able to have two turns in a row.

It's a... polarizing mechanic, let's say. It worked well with the initial design for AoS when it was still a lot of melee. But since then, alpha-strike power, and shooting and magic strength of certain armies have skyrocketed, some armies winning just off a dice roll now.

I don't have the sources on hand right now, but most games of AoS are ended on the first turn of second round, or the first turn of third round, depending on which type of army gets a Double-Turn and when. It's been recognized by GW, and they think the mechanic is good for some reason. It had it's place, but just like with 40k, the lethality and viability of reliably applying that lethality has ramped up far too much.

Coming from other games, the issue is less the lethality of attacks and more the easy application of those attacks.

Warmachine has high lethality and buffability, but heavy controls on that lethality via short range, being able to block attacks with your other units etc.

Infinity has extremely high lethality and range, but a huge portion of the game is dictated by total or partial cover and the way that you use your troops via positioning etc.

Malifaux has high lethality and stackable buffs etc, but is controlled via its LoS and short range much like warmachine.

In 40k, everything has long range and can use TLoS to hit you anywhere on the board unless you use very specific terrain to stop that (and notably not GW's own terrain). Terrain is limited to a small penalty to hit rather than a huge impact and is often purely area based, so flanking cover etc is less impactful. You can use troops to screen against melee, but not against shooting in a meaningful way, meaning that those Lascannons can always target the heavy tank and the blast weapons can target the fragile artillery and theres nothing you can do about it.

There are not many meaningful ways to control how you take damage in 40k - at least there weren't when I last played and it looks like its still the same.

People arguing for defensive buffs - this can mitigate some of the problem short term, but long term its the same "does what I take counter what you take" problem that 40k is infamous for. Forcing players to use their models correctly is a better solution with long term viability for the game.

If I was to propose a solution off the top of my head, its would be;
A) Mitigate the perfect targeting issue by either removing TLoS, hugely improving cover, letting intervening models screen for your valuable ones, or something similar.
B) Add player agency requirement to attacking by limiting the range of weapons (and probably movement, buff auras etc) or imposing a distance hit modifier etc.

 Dakkamite wrote:
Coming from other games, the issue is less the lethality of attacks and more the easy application of those attacks.

Warmachine has high lethality and buffability, but heavy controls on that lethality via short range, being able to block attacks with your other units etc.

Infinity has extremely high lethality and range, but a huge portion of the game is dictated by total or partial cover and the way that you use your troops via positioning etc.

Malifaux has high lethality and stackable buffs etc, but is controlled via its LoS and short range much like warmachine.

In 40k, everything has long range and can use TLoS to hit you anywhere on the board unless you use very specific terrain to stop that (and notably not GW's own terrain). Terrain is limited to a small penalty to hit rather than a huge impact and is often purely area based, so flanking cover etc is less impactful. You can use troops to screen against melee, but not against shooting in a meaningful way, meaning that those Lascannons can always target the heavy tank and the blast weapons can target the fragile artillery and theres nothing you can do about it.

There are not many meaningful ways to control how you take damage in 40k - at least there weren't when I last played and it looks like its still the same.

People arguing for defensive buffs - this can mitigate some of the problem short term, but long term its the same "does what I take counter what you take" problem that 40k is infamous for. Forcing players to use their models correctly is a better solution with long term viability for the game.

If I was to propose a solution off the top of my head, its would be;
A) Mitigate the perfect targeting issue by either removing TLoS, hugely improving cover, letting intervening models screen for your valuable ones, or something similar.
B) Add player agency requirement to attacking by limiting the range of weapons (and probably movement, buff auras etc) or imposing a distance hit modifier etc.

I think you're missing a crucial understanding of terrain changes.

A swiss cheese GW building is now capable of fully blocking line of sight.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
...I think you're missing a crucial understanding of terrain changes.

A swiss cheese GW building is now capable of fully blocking line of sight.

Oh, is 40k now played on Infinity-dense tables with units that can't pop up anywhere on the table they like and fire at full effectiveness? Does terrain somehow mitigate all the perfect-accuracy indirect fire that doesn't require line of sight? Do units not get 30+" charge threat ranges now?

I do miss the old Prepared Positions general stratagem you could use to mitigate an Alpha Strike.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Dakkamite wrote:
Coming from other games, the issue is less the lethality of attacks and more the easy application of those attacks.

Warmachine has high lethality and buffability, but heavy controls on that lethality via short range, being able to block attacks with your other units etc.

Infinity has extremely high lethality and range, but a huge portion of the game is dictated by total or partial cover and the way that you use your troops via positioning etc.

Malifaux has high lethality and stackable buffs etc, but is controlled via its LoS and short range much like warmachine.

In 40k, everything has long range and can use TLoS to hit you anywhere on the board unless you use very specific terrain to stop that (and notably not GW's own terrain). Terrain is limited to a small penalty to hit rather than a huge impact and is often purely area based, so flanking cover etc is less impactful. You can use troops to screen against melee, but not against shooting in a meaningful way, meaning that those Lascannons can always target the heavy tank and the blast weapons can target the fragile artillery and theres nothing you can do about it.

There are not many meaningful ways to control how you take damage in 40k - at least there weren't when I last played and it looks like its still the same.

People arguing for defensive buffs - this can mitigate some of the problem short term, but long term its the same "does what I take counter what you take" problem that 40k is infamous for. Forcing players to use their models correctly is a better solution with long term viability for the game.

If I was to propose a solution off the top of my head, its would be;
A) Mitigate the perfect targeting issue by either removing TLoS, hugely improving cover, letting intervening models screen for your valuable ones, or something similar.
B) Add player agency requirement to attacking by limiting the range of weapons (and probably movement, buff auras etc) or imposing a distance hit modifier etc.

I think you're missing a crucial understanding of terrain changes.

A swiss cheese GW building is now capable of fully blocking line of sight.

Probably, I'm just returning after playing back in 6th. Used to house-rule that change great to see it more applicable. Still a lot to be desired in the rules but at least their official terrain is much more playable!

Jarms48 wrote:
I do miss the old Prepared Positions general stratagem you could use to mitigate an Alpha Strike.

That was fething laughable and admitting they suck at writing rules via sticking with the terrible outdated turn system.

I've not had a massive amount of games in 9th, and not yet at a proper full tourney. And the terrain sets we play with tend to favour a decent amount of LOS blocking stuff.

In most of the games there hasn't been massive Alpha strikes. Usually the opponent or myself will push one unit or two into purposefully vulnerable positions on objectives or to threaten key units. Then defensive buffs will be placed on those units, or they'll just be exceptionally tanky to begin with. After that it becomes a case of exchanging and maneuvering units, not quite like chess but still satisfying.

And usually by the end of turn five one or both of us will indeed have very few units. Sometimes as few as one or two. But the one with less units isn't always loosing on objectives.

In all honestly 40K is as, if not more; interesting than it's ever been for me and my friend group.

 the_scotsman wrote:
You know something?

I actually think everything having slightly inflated stats is a good thing.

I think having marines at W2, necrons at W1 with very strong res prots and sisters being cheap W1 low T good sv, Orks at T5 sv6+, nids as a high toughness high wounds low sv army, death guard at W2 -1 to damage, daemons and harlequins with invulns, eldar and drukhari with hit modifiers, and GSC and Guard with super overwhelmingly good cheap numbers is a better baseline place for the game to be than having basically 2 types of unit: GEQ and MEQ that you might want to shoot.

A lot of the problem of early editions and 8th was that you had

-cheapo infantry unit
-elite infantry unit
-medium vehicle
Almost identical in MASSIVE abundance, and then a couple weirdos with unusual statlines and abilities that bucked the trend, but a TON of units that just followed the trend.

...

Going back to where a sister a necron, a marine, and a heavy aspect warrior have almost exactly the same statline as each other would be bad for the game. Explore the space.

I dunno, the more you "explore the space" the more you create rock-paper-scissors dynamics, and that means shifting more focus towards list-building and away from actually playing the game. This doesn't actually end up promoting TAC lists, it promotes lists that can skew in certain very particular ways.

There are real advantages to having a system where the difference between models is less about base stats and more about special rules and how you use your models tactically. It makes it easier to balance, it reduces complexity and makes the game friendlier to newer players, it reduces the types of skew you have to plan for, it promotes actual TAC lists, etc.

One change that I don't see mentioned that's increased lethality in the game is that in the older editions of the game, entire units had to select a single target to shoot at.

Wanted your lascannon in your tac squad to shoot at a tank? You could, but your tac squad couldn't select another target to shoot at with their bolters.

So it's not just that raw weapon stats have increased, it's that each turn, you're able to maximize each weapon being fired.

But yeah, lethality has bloated over the editions. To give you an idea, if you pick two shooty squads/vehicles/whatever in this edition, they have about the same ranged firepower as most 1500 point armies in 3rd/4th/5th.

Altima wrote:
But yeah, lethality has bloated over the editions. To give you an idea, if you pick two shooty squads/vehicles/whatever in this edition, they have about the same ranged firepower as most 1500 point armies in 3rd/4th/5th.

The infamously overkill 'leafblower' list of 5th edition had the following alpha strike - at 2500pts:
-One manticore (indirect fire, large blast)
-One unit of psykers (large blast)
-One unit of two medusa tanks (small blasts)
-Scattered autocannon and multilasers

In an edition where the defender deployed second and 4+ cover was standard.

Played another game last night against Ad Mech. Even with two fliers and indirect fire, my opponent still did not destroy one of my Craftworld units on turn one. Using defensive stratagems like Celestial Shield and Lightning Fast Reflexes reduced enough damage against the units that could shoot was enough. Terrain plays a critical part in first turn shooting.

If one is getting large portions of their army removed on turn 1 simply by not going first, then I highly recommend reviewing terrain type and placement first, followed by actual model deployment. You don't win games in deployment, but can certainly lose games in deployment.

Karol wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I have a >30" charge range with a unit with 10 Flat 3 damage attacks at -3 rend that hits on 2s and wounds on 2s (against marines) and rerolls 1s to wound, with access to rerolls ones to hit.

To what unit do you refer?

Isn't that the witch succub, I could be wrong though.

In general all the armies with skimmers, that lets them ignore terrain, benefit a lot more from terrain, then a regular army

haha, what? no. Succubus does not have 30" charge threat lol.

With a transport it does. Same as harlis. On the smaller board specially, you can't really stop either army from charging what ever they want, unless there is no LoS blocking terrain on it.

KOS maximum charge range with all possible buffs is:

19" movement with Celerity of Slaanesh + Realm Racer buff

26" after advancing with Realm Racer buff

39" after charging with Realm Racer buff.

That means if everything goes well (a tall order, I know, which is why I dropped it down to 30" to account for average dice rolls) your unit can be within 40" of movement of my KOS and I can go poke you in the eye. 37" without WLT. 33" with a basic KOS with nothing.

With average rolls but same buffs its:
19"
23.5"
31.5" - meaning a unit within 32.5" is in danger on average rolls if I got Realm Racer and have the CoS warlord trait. 29.5" without the WLT, and 25.5" with a basic KoS with nothing.

EDIT:
Total KOS profile is:
WS 2+
6 attacks at Strength 8, AP-3, 3 flat damage
4 attacks at Strength 6, AP-3, 3 flat damage
- reroll 1s to wound in combat phase

Access to (via stratagems and/or wargear options)
6 Str 6 AP-2 2 flat damage shooting attacks at 6" that can be fired into ongoing combat
"Fight Again" via friendly psychic power (in the friendly turn, but there are at least 2 mechanisms in Slaanesh to prevent fallback)
2 psychic power casts, including a fair few that can do mortal wounds (including smite).

The increased lethality is a combination of so many things it's hard to know where to start.

Boards are smaller, leaving less space to deploy in to get out of range of attacks. Rate of fire is very high compared to previous editions. Split fire is available to all units. Ranges have massively increased. Movement has massively increased. Rerolls have been introduced to the game. Stratagems allow increased lethality.

As an example of how much things have changed since 3rd edition:

https://ttgamingdiary.wordpress.com/2018/10/04/an-interview-with-gav-thorpe/

About halfway down the page Gav Thorpe talks about the Wraithlord and how it was so scary because it could kill 2 Space Marines a turn with it's fists. 2! That's the baseline the game used to be at. You also had trade-offs for moving which reduced range or completely prevented you shooting. All movements was restricted to 6" for infantry or 12" for bikes/jump infantry. Now we have units routinely able to charge from one deployment zone to the other.

Nothing short of a root-and-branch rewrite of the rules will solve this but GW don't seem to be interested in seriously reducing lethality so I don't think it'll ever happen.

They did a poll over on TGA a while ago for AOS on how much stuff should be left on the board at the end of a game, and, incredibly to me, most people seem to like the current levels of lethality in that game, which is even higher than in 40k. I think the most popular answer was that 10-25% of all the models on the board should be left at the end of a game. So it's not clear to me there is even an issue for most people, much less for GW.

The game's scoring right now is also 100% dependent on super high lethality. If you can't kill almost anything standing on any objective in one turn, scoring starts to degenerate into who can pack more bodies onto objectives for longer, which is not entertaining gameplay. To have a lower lethality game, you need ways to get control of objectives from opponents that don't just involve outnumbering - a real morale system, for example, that could force your opponent to move off an objective because they're fleeing, or mechanics that would grant control of the objective not just based on bodies but on who won the most recent combat, etc.

yukishiro1 wrote:
They did a poll over on TGA a while ago for AOS on how much stuff should be left on the board at the end of a game, and, incredibly to me, most people seem to like the current levels of lethality in that game, which is even higher than in 40k. I think the most popular answer was that 10-25% of all the models on the board should be left at the end of a game. So it's not clear to me there is even an issue for most people, much less for GW.

That kind of lethality is fine for the theme of 40k. The problem is that there's no counter play against the opponent.

yukishiro1 wrote:
They did a poll over on TGA a while ago for AOS on how much stuff should be left on the board at the end of a game, and, incredibly to me, most people seem to like the current levels of lethality in that game, which is even higher than in 40k. I think the most popular answer was that 10-25% of all the models on the board should be left at the end of a game. So it's not clear to me there is even an issue for most people, much less for GW.
.

Worth noting that in AOS it is much harder for things to get shot off and that combined with the alternating combat system means that you get to use your cool units in most games(yes, this is a generalisation). Part of the issue in 40k is having your cool units blown off the table in an uninteractive manner

That was AOS years ago, now AOS is very similar to 40k - actually worse in many ways, since terrain does nothing and there is even more mobility. AOS is now significantly more front-loaded than 40k, and the top lists are more ranged-focused as well, amazingly.

Well a range list if it gets double turn would have a huge adventage. I mean people can imagine what would happen, if they ended up moving first and then something like harlequins or the new DE got two turns back to back. There is a good chance there would be nothing to play with on their 2ed turn.

Karol wrote:
Well a range list if it gets double turn would have a huge adventage. I mean people can imagine what would happen, if they ended up moving first and then something like harlequins or the new DE got two turns back to back. There is a good chance there would be nothing to play with on their 2ed turn.

Its the same the other way around. top T1 Harlequins run up, charge the opponents front screens. button T1 the units that charged get killed. Top T2 the rest gets killed before they can charge in the space made by the first wave. Game effectively over before Harlequins get their second turn.

With low lethality the concept of the double turn could be fine. with high lethality and every top army having access to teleports or summoning it appears to be utterly horrible from the, admitted little, of AoS I have seen in the last ~6 months.

Front screen? I mean, I guess some armies have those. From personal expiriance I know that what ever the harlequin player goes first or second, it doesn't matter much, because he will nuke my dudes off the table. And my only choice is what ever I want to try to get on one objective to at least try to score primary, or is the game done on turn 2. Specially now as I found out, that bases count for model being painted too.

I see a few fixes to this problem from my point of view

1. the second turn player can get something along 5 victory points for free

2.Bigger board size to prevent 1st turn charges and possibly avoid being pummeled by weapons that have short range and really shouldnt be firing on the first turn.

3.Some sort of cover bonus for the 2nd player, like light cover also giving you -1 to hit, and heavy cover giving you a +1 save bonus, maybe even giving every 2nd turn player's army a minimum of light cover

bat702 wrote:
I see a few fixes to this problem from my point of view

1. the second turn player can get something along 5 victory points for free

2.Bigger board size to prevent 1st turn charges and possibly avoid being pummeled by weapons that have short range and really shouldnt be firing on the first turn.

3.Some sort of cover bonus for the 2nd player, like light cover also giving you -1 to hit, and heavy cover giving you a +1 save bonus, maybe even giving every 2nd turn player's army a minimum of light cover

bigger boards don't do anything in 9th since if you deploy way back you can't reach mid field objectives in time and you auto lose anyway.

and we had a cover bonus for CP in 8th. Didn't do gak then, won't do gak now. And it doesn't even do much/anything against T1 charges or transports full of fusion pistols.

The best way to fix the problem is to address the source rather then apply bandaid on top of bandaid.
They already changed weapons outside of a codex in 9th. Nothing stops them from doing it again. CA 2021, full rework of all weapon profiles, could be a thing if GW wanted to.

bigger boards don't do anything in 9th since if you deploy way back you can't reach mid field objectives in time and you auto lose anyway.

If you have skimmer transports that ignore terrain and lots of jetbikes, you can claim objectives even if the terrain is dense. specially if you have a 20"+ range of movment per turn.

What if casualties were removed at the end of the round after each player had gone instead of immediately? Or some sort of split where infantry were removed immediately but vehicles/MC's were allowed to continue until they expired? Probably have to have an exception for close combat.

It would create a whole new slew of problems/contradictions and would result in a strange level of gaming the system, but it would somewhat solve the alpha strike issue in that people would get to use their toys for at least one round to retaliate.

Karol wrote:
With a transport it does. Same as harlis. On the smaller board specially, you can't really stop either army from charging what ever they want, unless there is no LoS blocking terrain on it.

I mean, you can't *now* but the game used to be built specifically to prevent first turn charges, apart from a deployment blunder or insane risk Dark Eldar shenanigans involving raiders at the very edge of deployment zones. Game required 24"+ between units if deployed in LOS and 18"+ if deployed outside LOS. Average charging threat range was 12"-18", or 24" for a fleet army if they had leaping or a 12" movement, rolled perfectly, and didn't have any terrain to slow them down, which was near impossible.

So, really, first turn charges aren't really the fault of the game board but of GW's direct actions. We can only assume that they want to allow this behavior, given how permissive it is over older editions.

Personally, I think CC should be lethal--and should be the most lethal part of the game. But I don't think it should be easy to get into close combat, certainly not on turn 1 or coming in off of reserves. There's no counterplay involved and creates a feeling of helplessness.

Altima wrote:
What if casualties were removed at the end of the round after each player had gone instead of immediately? Or some sort of split where infantry were removed immediately but vehicles/MC's were allowed to continue until they expired? Probably have to have an exception for close combat.

It would create a whole new slew of problems/contradictions and would result in a strange level of gaming the system, but it would somewhat solve the alpha strike issue in that people would get to use their toys for at least one round to retaliate.

Ive been wanting to try a game of 40k with Epics casualty rules for a while now. Unfortunately covid meant that idea has been on the shelf for a while.

yukishiro1 wrote:
That was AOS years ago, now AOS is very similar to 40k - actually worse in many ways, since terrain does nothing and there is even more mobility. AOS is now significantly more front-loaded than 40k, and the top lists are more ranged-focused as well, amazingly.

That's not particularly amazing. Ranged weapons were very curtailed in early AoS armies. Poor hit rolls, low damage, short ranges, etc, with only a few exceptions. Recently they've let ranged armies go nuts.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Oh, is 40k now played on Infinity-dense tables with units that can't pop up anywhere on the table they like and fire at full effectiveness?

Yes, if you want it that dense.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Does terrain somehow mitigate all the perfect-accuracy indirect fire that doesn't require line of sight?

Yes, you can claim benefits of cover for non LOs shots. No cover save bonus weapons do ignore benefit of cover, however.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Do units not get 30+" charge threat ranges now?

Dangerous terrain incurs -2" when moving through it. Scalable/unstable position also forces net reduction in movement as you also need to account for verticle movements when moving thru such terrain.